It is well known that there are various types of essentially stationary obstructions that appear on a road in the path of travel and would preferably be avoided by a driver traveling that road. Such stationary obstructions include potholes, gratings, fallen rocks, man-hole coverings, whether above or below grade, and the like. Because such an in-the-road, passable obstruction is on, or part of, the road itself, it is often difficult for a driver to see the in-the-road, passable obstruction in a timely manner, i.e., while still having enough time in order to avoid hitting it. Consequently, many times the driver cannot avoid the obstruction, and there is a resulting collision of the vehicle with the in-the-road, passable obstruction which may damage the vehicle. Note that such damage may not be immediately noticeable.
One possible solution to the road hazard problem is to eliminate or remove the obstruction. Many cities have encouraged those encountering an in-the-road, passable obstacle to report it to the city, so that the in-the-road, passable obstacle could be cleared. However, the reporting methods were not efficient. An improvement to such a reporting arrangement, a smartphone app “Street Bump” has been developed which automatically reports the locations of potholes to the city of Boston. As described in http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/07/20/treet-bump-app-detects-potholes-alerts-boston-city-officials/?test=latestnews, before starting a trip, a driver starts the Street Bump app and sets his smartphone either on the dashboard or in a cup holder. The app, uses the phone's accelerometer to sense when a bump is hit. The location of the bump, as determined using global positioning signals (GPS), is transmitted to a remote server hosted by Amazon Inc.'s Web services division. The system filters out things like manhole covers and speed bumps using a series of algorithms, including one that can tell if the initial motion is up over a speed bump, as opposed to down into a pothole. If at least three people hit a bump in the same spot, that spot is recognized as the location of a pothole.
Another possible solution is to direct the driver to reroute the vehicle via a different road than the one containing the obstruction. However, since such in-the-road obstructions are passable, guidance devices that are based on GPS and the like do not direct the driver to reroute the vehicle simply based on the existence of such in-the-road passable obstructions. Herein such obstructions may be referred to as passable road obstructions, on the path of travel, in-the-road obstructions that are passable, non-rerouting road obstructions, or the like.